I just have a taste for solemn, morbid things...?
When the invoice arrived in the mail, it listed off pound amounts for the uncommon black marble, carving services, interment process, processing fees, and other details. It wasn't the prices that bothered John Watson, it was that the invoice had a line at the bottom that said "Client: Sherlock Holmes, care of estate executor John Watson". It took those words, in solemn black font, to drive the fact home, even after the burial and funeral, that Sherlock was gone.
In the end, the elaborate grave marker was one of the best investments John Watson had ever made.
He grew to know it very well, visiting it day, night, autumn, winter, summer, spring, holidays and weekdays, days off and workdays alike. Every groove in the stone, every indented curve of the letters carved into it, all of it was memorized by his hands, alternating between angry smacks to the marble, and tearfully-fond pats to the silent homage to his best friend.
After that first visit back to his counselor, John had decided the therapy wasn't working, walking out midway through the session itself. He hadn't gone back, instead letting out everything to this excellent listener. His opinions were accepted, his theories mulled over, his tirades left to go on uninterrupted. And the shiny dark stone was kept highly polished by an expert, resulting in a glossy-enough surface that John could see a blurry reflection of himself in it, as he sat before it among a bed of crunchy dead leaves and grass. It was almost like having an actual person to talk to.
They never could figure out why the vegetation around Sherlock's grave wouldn't grow, even in the spring, when literally every other marker in the cemetery was surrounded by a lush emerald sea of grass. This abnormality brought to mind an old wives' fact John had been told when he was younger and at a grandfather's gravesite after the funeral; he'd been told that the ugly mound of burial dirt would soon be grown over with vibrant grass and flowers, and the brat cousin who'd informed him of this said it was because the dead body would provide fertilizer. How that worked with a coffin in the way, young John could never figure out, but the fact remained that gravesites were often marked with healthy foliage.
The fact that Sherlock's stubbornly refused, defied nature…It was just odd. Odd enough to give the grown John Watson a macabre sense of hope, an irrational denial deep in his heart that maybe, just maybe, he would get the miracle he had pleaded for. That maybe his listener, the stone marked Sherlock Holmes, had actually heard. That maybe, just maybe, there wasn't really a body beneath the stone that kept a silent vigil.
He knew the rest of them were worried, were concerned, were anxious at the fact that he had stopped therapy in favor of talking to an inanimate stone in a yard full of dead people. He had received texts from Lestrade, notes through the door from Mrs. Hudson when he refused to open it; even Mycroft Holmes had mysteriously appeared in an armchair in the living room one evening, asking how John was.
And honestly, he no longer knew what to say.
He'd resumed work at a hospital, ate and drank methodically, went on the occasional date with a coworker, and read the paper, but nothing had been the same since the day he had been the transcriber of that verbal suicide note. Since his best friend had plummeted several stories to the pavement of London.
He sometimes found himself acting as Sherlock had when between cases; pacing, seeking entertainment in the oddest of places while awaiting a mystery to solve, even foraging for cigarettes when he knew for a fact there were none on the premises. And then there was the blog.
He'd received several emails informing him that though the account remained active and the subscription paid through the year, it was encouraged that he actually employ the webspace, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. If he even logged in, he knew he would see a timeline of posts that had been written across the table from a prattling Sherlock, would see a list of titles that Sherlock had scoffed at and ridiculed, would see…A digital ghost of his time with Sherlock, and he still couldn't do it. In fact, he avoided his laptop like the plague, the device that Sherlock was forever borrowing and hacking into; John had cancelled his online billing for utilities, had returned almost everything to pen and paper so that he wouldn't have to use his computer often.
The gravestone knew and understood all of this, never judged him, never criticized him, never dragged him out of the mental state he now viewed as a comfort zone.
He even took a day a week to bring his tea physically to the graveside, sipping contemplatively as he worked his way through the schedule for his week, the stone a silent companion as always.
It was a chilly day in late autumn, nearly two years after The Fall, and John was making a routine trip to the graveyard, collar turned up in a pitiful attempt to combat the light rain that was already falling. He passed through the familiar, creaking gate that always protested his entrances shrilly, passed the Monaghan family tomb, passed the caretaker's maintenance shed, all the features of the cemetery that he had long since memorized as a result of his constant visits.
He couldn't think of anything more morbid, but it was simply what he did.
Arriving at the spot his feet had mechanically led him to, John knelt before the stone marked with Sherlock's name, settling himself on the quickly-dampening ground with nary a thought for the material of his coat or slacks. As he sat, quiet and pensive, the rain began to fall harder, the soothing pattering noises as calming as anything. Opening one eye, John noted the sky darkening even quicker due to the rain, and sooner than he would rather, he would have to head back, regretfully.
Noticing the marker slightly obscured by twigs and leaves that had built up after the gusty winds of last evening's storm, he moved closer, crouching to move it all aside. That was when he noticed, amid the dying light.
He'd become accustomed to the look and feel of the cemetery, what markers were where, who visited when, and things of that sort. The routine of mourning and grief. And so he knew now that for roughly a five-grave radius around Sherlock's, old as those plots were, there were seldom any visitors, much less on a rainy night. So who, then, was standing several paces behind John, visible only as a blurry column of darkness, reflected by the revealed gravestone as he brushed leaves from it?
His movements halted, and he stood, flicking one last wet leaf from his sleeve as he turned to face whoever it was, probably a distant relative of someone interred here, who was lost.
When he met the green gaze locked on his own, he blanched, breath catching in his throat. No, couldn't be. He promptly turned back around, swiveling on the spot and counting to ten in his mind, attempting to gauge just how much he had lost his mind. Did he believe in ghosts? He'd never really been in a position to say, but he usually preferred sense and rational explanations for everything, resulting from his experiences as a soldier and Sherlock's sidekick. But this, this mirage standing behind him, there was really no explanation other than madness, he thought.
Flicking another glance behind him, John saw the lanky figure, clad in a long black coat with upturned collar, had moved slightly, backing away a couple of paces to lean against a tall tombstone, arms folded bemusedly. Swallowing thickly, he noted the soaked curls atop the head, and again averted his eyes, placing a hand on the black marble marker, grounding himself in the sensation of gripping the frigid, rain-spattered stone. Did ghosts get wet? Did the weather affect them? Did they need – could they lean, against a solid object?
Just as he had decided to pull out his phone and punch in his abandoned therapist's number, a familiar voice called out from behind him, cutting through the chiming of raindrops as surely as a blade. "I hope this is the miracle you asked for, because you won't find any better than me, you know."
The self-assured smugness in the tone was identification enough, and John muttered a quiet thanks to the black marble, patting it as one pats an old friend on the shoulder, before turning and pacing towards the impatiently-waiting form of Sherlock Holmes. "Took you long enough, you know."
Thanks for reading, guys. ~Bon